


Stutter

by onekisstotakewithme



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: 1930s, Boxing & Fisticuffs, Gen, Kid Fic, Pre-Canon, Quarantine Dopamine Machine, Siblings, Stuttering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24529186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onekisstotakewithme/pseuds/onekisstotakewithme
Summary: Honoria is 12, and a stutterer.Her fists don't stutter against the punching bag, and they are eloquent in ways that she knows she could be, given the chance.
Relationships: Charles Emerson Winchester III & Honoria Winchester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	Stutter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blue_raven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_raven/gifts), [daylight_angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daylight_angel/gifts).



Honoria is 12 when she learns to fight, using a borrowed punching bag hanging in the back of the family garage, pounding her fists into it over and over again, while the family chauffeur Jimmy, sits by with an apple, and laughs at her technique, and points out the ways to inflict maximum damage on others and minimum damage on herself. 

It is summer in Boston, hot and sticky, and sweat leaves her hair plastered to her forehead. 

She'd cut her hair at the beginning of June, with a pair of blunt nail scissors, and grinned into her lemonade when her governess had swooned from the shock of Honoria Winchester, prim and proper lady, up to her eyebrows in mud with her hair cut to her chin. 

Honoria is 12, and a stutterer. Her older brother and father are the ones who can twist their words into barbed wire, but her own savage wit never makes it past the stutter.

And so she learns techniques, and spars with Jimmy out on the lawn behind the garage as the hot sun beats on the back of her neck and leaves her as pink as Louise Peterson's new summer dress that she doesn't shut up about, and when she goes to bed with sore fingers, it's at least with a savage kind of pleasure.

Because her fists don't stutter against the punching bag, and they are eloquent in ways that she knows she could be, given the chance.

She's practicing alone, listening to the classical record she stole from Charlie skip as it hits the spot that scratched when she crawled out of his window and down the wisteria trellis, when she hears an amused, "I had wondered what you did with my records when you stole them."

She turns around, fists already raised, only to see him standing in the doorway, looking neat and pressed despite the heat radiating off him, backed by the golden sunlight that pours in around him, truly the golden son returned.

"Well, l-look what the cat d-dragged in," she says, wiping the sweat from her forehead. "C-Charlie."

"Norie," he says, walking over, and she hopes for just a brief second that he'll embrace her, but reason prevails. "Father had mentioned you've become quite the little featherweight, but now that I see it..."

"Everyone s-should know how t-to fight," she says, tugging over a crate and collapsing onto it. "Even y-you."

"Surely you know I have my savage wit to fight with,” he retorts, pulling another crate over to sit beside her.

She rolls her eyes. "T-That is, without question, the s-stupidest thing I've ever h-heard-"

He completes the sentence with her, "And that  _ boggles _ the mind."

Their eyes meet, and for a second, she aches with the remembrance of a shared childhood, before he went away, of nannies and governesses, and fancy dinners and dance lessons, and five years is so long. "D-Do you want me to t-teach you?"

His eyebrows go up. "And what could you teach me, Norie?"

"Lots of t-things," she says defensively. "T-Troglodyte."

"Simpleton."

"Fool."

He gives her a smile. "Lady."

She raises a fist in warning. "You t-take that b-back!"

"And what," he starts, eyes glittering. "You expect me to be frightened of a little girl that stutters?"

She punches him in the face.

He falls backwards off his crate, the look of surprise as he topples over incredibly funny.

Honoria laughs when she stands over him. "Did that st-stutter?"

He stares up at her, a hand pressed to his jaw, and then he smiles, and then it turns into a laugh as well, and she wishes, more than anything that Father could see what Charlie is like when he's not desperately trying to be the best, when he's rolling around the concrete floor of the garage, chuckling madly as he presses his hand to a rapidly forming bruise. "Your point was made eloquently," he gasps out at last. "Though the delivery lacked... finesse."

“You lack b-brains,” she retorts.

“Perhaps,” he says, staring up at her, affectionately amused. “Where on earth did you learn to fight?”

“M-Myself,” she says, and isn’t it obvious? “Who else?”

“You’ve got quite a punch,” he says, rubbing a hand over his jaw, still looking up at her like he’s proud. “I’ve seen boxing matches, and schoolyard brawls where the champions did not do nearly as well as you. They could stand to learn a few of your tricks.”

“Helps t-that I had the element of s-surprise,” she tries.

“Quiet please, Norie, I am attempting to be nice. It doesn’t happen often.”

"T-Thanks. I can t-teach you," she says, offering him a hand. 

He takes it. "Do you charge by the hour?"

She shakes her head, and smiles, but it fades. "It's free. Family d-discount."

"Come on then," he says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "Scrappy little fighter that you are, I'm sure you'll have me starting brawls in no time. But first, Cook says that supper is ready."

"G-Good," she says honestly. "I'm st-starved."

Honoria is 12, and a stutterer, and her fists never stutter when they crack against a jaw.


End file.
